I have a rule for supplier features at AnthroEvolve: I won't write one unless I'd recommend the brand anyway. The whole point of this cooperative is that every dollar is a vote — so we're not going to spend editorial space on brands that don't clear our bar just because they offered us a backlink.
Sunniemade cleared our bar. Comfortably.
Here's what earned them a permanent place in our ethical bathroom guides — and why I think they represent exactly the kind of business model the personal care industry needs more of.
From a Chicago Kitchen to Steamboat Springs — and Why That Story Matters
Sunniemade started where most good things do: someone got fed up with the available options and decided to make something better. Founded in 2022 by Sarah Spliethoff, the brand grew from small-batch bar soap experiments in a Lincoln Park, Chicago kitchen into a full range of plastic-free shower staples, now crafted in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
That woman-owned, independently owned, grassroots-grown origin isn't just a nice backstory — it's a meaningful signal about how decisions get made. When a business is answerable to its founder's values rather than to a board optimising for quarterly margins, it tends to take longer-view positions on things like ingredient sourcing, packaging choices, and what certifications are actually worth pursuing.
"One of the first things I look for when evaluating a brand is whether sustainability is baked into the business model or bolted on for marketing purposes. Sunniemade's whole premise — solid, concentrated bars — is itself the environmental argument. They didn't add a green credential to a liquid product line. They built around a format that is inherently lower-impact. That's the difference between values-driven and values-adjacent."
The brand's mission — make it genuinely easy and pleasurable for people to turn sustainable bathroom habits into their default — also resonates with how we think about this at AnthroEvolve. The word "pleasurable" is doing real work there. The sustainable swap that feels like a sacrifice is the one people abandon by week three. The one that feels like an upgrade is the one that sticks.
The Credentials: Third-Party, Not Self-Awarded
This is where I want to spend some time, because the personal care industry has a greenwashing problem that is genuinely difficult to navigate. "Natural," "eco-friendly," "clean" — none of these terms have regulatory definitions in the United States. Any brand can claim them. The only meaningful signals are third-party verified ones.
Sunniemade has earned several of those.
"I want to highlight the 1% for the Planet piece specifically, because it's easy to gloss over. This isn't a 'portion of proceeds to charity' claim — which is one of the vaguest promises in marketing. 1% for the Planet membership requires financial documentation and third-party verification that the money actually flows to vetted environmental organisations. And Sunniemade applies it to all sales, across the entire product range. That's the difference between an intention and an accountability structure."
| Credential | What It Means in Practice |
|---|---|
| Certified Green Business (CO) | Independent audit of waste reduction, energy use, and environmental performance — not self-reported |
| Plastic Pollution Coalition Member | Approved by an organisation that holds members to genuine plastic-reduction commitments, not just plastic-adjacent language |
| 1% for the Planet | 1% of all sales donated to reforestation efforts through vetted environmental non-profits — applies across the entire product range |
| Carbon Neutral Shipping | All shipments offset through Shopify Planet, funding reforestation and soil carbon storage projects |
| Vegan & Cruelty Free | No animal-derived ingredients; products never tested on animals |
| Woman-Owned | Female founded, owned and operated — Sarah Spliethoff is both the dreamer and the doer behind the brand |
| Fully recyclable / compostable packaging | Responsibly sourced paper and soy-based inks — no plastic at any stage of the product |
What's Actually in the Bars — and What's Not
Certifications tell you about a company's behaviour. Ingredients tell you about a product's quality. Both matter, and you should be asking about both before you commit to swapping out your current routine.
✓ What You'll Find
- Plant-based oils rich in vitamins and antioxidants
- Naturally-sourced fragrance and colour
- Concentrated active ingredients — no water dilution
- Biodegradable formulations safe for waterways
- Nourishing rather than stripping chemistry
✗ What You Won't Find
- Synthetic fragrances or artificial dyes
- Added preservatives (unnecessary in waterless bars)
- Parabens — artificial preservatives linked to fertility concerns
- Phthalates — harsh endocrine-disrupting chemicals
- Petrochemical derivatives
- Plastic packaging at any stage
- Water padding out the formula
The waterless formulation is worth dwelling on for a moment, because it has implications beyond just concentration. Conventional liquid shampoos and body washes can be up to 90% water by weight. That water content requires preservatives to prevent microbial growth over a 2–3 year shelf life in a plastic bottle. Remove the water, and you remove the need for those preservation systems. Simpler formulation, cleaner ingredient list — and a product that works harder per gram.
The no-synthetic-fragrance position is also a meaningful commitment for anyone with sensitive skin, scalp conditions, or a preference for reducing unnecessary petrochemical derivatives in their routine. Fragrance is one of the leading causes of contact dermatitis in personal care products, and "fragrance" as a single ingredient declaration on a label can legally mask dozens of individual chemical compounds. Sunniemade's naturally-sourced approach to scent is both a health and a transparency statement.
A note on "natural" fragrance: Even naturally-sourced essential oils can cause sensitivity reactions in some individuals. If you have a history of scalp or skin sensitivity, patch testing any new product — including natural ones — remains the sensible first step. Sunniemade's formulations are gentler than most conventional alternatives, but "natural" is not a synonym for "hypoallergenic."
The Industry Context That Makes Sunniemade More Significant
The 1938 Problem
The last major regulatory update for cosmetic ingredients in the United States dates to 1938. For context: that's before the invention of nylon, before commercial television, before the discovery of DNA's structure. The personal care industry in America has been largely self-regulating for over 85 years, which is why "we set our own higher standards" is both necessary and genuinely meaningful when a brand actually does it.
The EU operates under significantly stricter cosmetic regulations — banning or restricting over 1,300 ingredients that remain permitted in US personal care products. This regulatory gap means that American consumers who want higher standards have to seek out brands that voluntarily apply them. Sunniemade is one of those brands.
This context matters when evaluating supplier relationships at AnthroEvolve. We're not just looking for brands that avoid the worst ingredients — we're looking for brands that are actively raising the floor in a category where the floor is surprisingly low. The combination of third-party certification, ingredient transparency, plastic elimination upstream (not just downstream recycling), and community-rooted ownership puts Sunniemade in a genuinely small group of personal care brands doing this right.
The Products: What to Expect from a Solid Bar Routine
I'm going to be honest with you about solid bars the way I am in all of our guides: there is an adjustment period, and pretending otherwise would be doing you a disservice. The first week or two of using a solid shampoo bar often feels slightly different from what you're used to — your scalp is recalibrating from whatever your previous product's silicone load was, and the lather profile is different from a liquid formula. That's normal. It passes.
What I can tell you is that when you come out the other side of that adjustment, the results hold up. Sunniemade's bars are formulated to nourish rather than strip, which is the distinction that separates quality solid haircare from the bars that leave your hair feeling like straw after a month.
The Core Range at a Glance
Sunniemade's plastic-free lineup covers the essentials — the swaps that together can eliminate the majority of plastic bottles from a typical bathroom routine:
Each product in the range is compact, travel-friendly (solid format clears TSA liquid restrictions), and — when stored properly on a draining soap dish rather than sitting in standing water — tends to outlast the bottled equivalent by a meaningful margin.
You can explore the full range at sunniemade.com. For context on how these bars slot into a complete low-waste bathroom routine, our guides below will show you exactly where Sunniemade fits.
"The thing people always ask me is: do solid bars actually perform as well as liquid products? My honest answer is: the good ones do — and the key word is 'good ones.' There's a wide range of quality in this category. What distinguishes Sunniemade is that they care about what happens to your hair and skin, not just what happens to the packaging. That combination of performance and purpose is rarer than it should be."
How Sunniemade Fits Into Your Ethical Bathroom
At AnthroEvolve, we think about bathroom swaps the same way a good teacher thinks about learning: sequence matters. You don't overhaul everything at once and hope it sticks. You start with the swaps that give you the biggest environmental impact for the least disruption to your routine — and you build from there.
Hair and body care is one of the highest-impact categories to address, because the combination of plastic bottle frequency, water weight in shipping, and microplastic runoff from synthetic ingredients adds up fast across a household. Sunniemade's bars address all three of those vectors simultaneously.
They're also a practical fit for how most people actually live: compact enough for gym bags and travel toiletry kits, with no TSA liquid restrictions, no leaking in luggage, and no "did I pack the right amount?" calculation before a trip.
Where you'll see Sunniemade in our guides: Sunniemade products appear in our reviews wherever concentrated, plastic-free hair and body products are relevant — particularly for readers prioritising independently verified low-waste credentials alongside clean formulation. If a product in our bathroom series carries both performance and planetary credentials, there's a good chance Sunniemade is nearby in the recommendation.
Explore Our Ethical Bathroom Guides
This feature is part of AnthroEvolve's broader research into the most sustainable and transparent bathroom products on the market. If you found this useful, the guides below go deeper on specific categories — with the same ingredient scrutiny, certification checks, and honest trade-offs you've come to expect here.
Ready to Explore Sunniemade?
Browse their full range of solid shampoo, conditioner, and body bars — plastic-free, certified, and made to perform.
Visit Sunniemade →Disclosure: AnthroEvolve and Sunniemade have a reciprocal linking arrangement — Sunniemade links to AnthroEvolve in exchange for this feature. This is disclosed in accordance with FTC guidelines. Our editorial policy remains unchanged: we only feature brands we would recommend independently of any commercial arrangement. Sunniemade's inclusion in our bathroom guides predates this feature and is based on their credentials, formulations, and alignment with our values.